Condition of bodies after the descent


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Matthew Newman

Member
Please do not think me sick or weird for asking this, but in what kind of condition would the human body be once it hit the ocean floor? We always here the pressure down there is "bone crushing" and I was wondering if that was literal. There's no real way to ask this nicely...I've tried to think of every way I can.

Simply put, if I went down that deep in a submersible and came across a recently deceased corpse that had sunk to that depth, what would or wouldn't I see?

I mean no disrespect to the Titanic's victims or any other ship wreck victims by asking this question...I'm genuinely curious.
 
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Bob Godfrey

Member
The body would not be flattened, any more than those of the fish which live down there. Soft tissues are made up mainly of water which is compressible only to a very limited degree, and bone would not be affected. Only those areas which contain air spaces which could not fill with water as the body descended would show much sign of pressure damage - notably the chest cavity. Bodies have been recovered from great depths and apart from the obvious rupturing of the lungs, ears etc they are basically intact. We've all seen those drinking cups brought back from the depths and compressed by pressure, but that happens because they are made of a plastic foam material which contains mainly air.
 
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Patrick James McKenna

Member
As wierd as these questions might be, the fact is that most of us have some degree of morbid curiousity.
There are conditions which contribute to the preservation of the dead, such as water temerature. However, the creatures of the sea, from the birds who see a body floating to the fish and the deep sea life that feed on anything from flesh to wood would, in time, devour the bodies.
 
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Arlene Forconi

Member
It's been a while since I've seen "Raise the Titanic." But as I recall one of the perps was found in an airtight vault perfectly preserved. Would that be possible at that depth? If this is discussed in the "RTT" thread just direct me as to where.

Leen
 
Mike Poirier

Mike Poirier

Member
I remember reading how Virginia Woolf attended the Titanic hearings and was of the impression that the ship and the bodies had been completely flattened at that depth. She said Stead was flat like a pancake and his eyes like copper coins.
 
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George L. Lorton

Member
Hi Mike,

I could see her saying something like that all too easily. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Me!
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Mark Robert Hopkins

Member
Stead, it's been suggested, was in the 1st class smoking room when it was flooded/destroyed (and it's been inferred that so too was Andrews, but I won't venture to say that that was actually the case), so if his remains really appeared as such, chances are just as possible that this condition came about at the surface and not the sinking itself. I know I wouldn't have wanted to be that particular room at that point in time.
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Perhaps Ms Wolff was attempting to employ her unique brand of humor or metaphorically illustrate, in her own colorful way, the horror of the tragedy?

As for the airtight room . . . The pressure of the water would likely have caused the space to implode upon descent, just as it did the other areas.

Interesting how Hollywood gets its ideas and hopes or thinks those ideas can be bought off to a [supposedly] intelligent public. It's now called 'nuking the fridge,' and it can be taken only so far before we have had enough of it.

But, ah, as long as the money is there, anything goes!
 
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